'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

Doctors’ union praises ‘huge amount of work’ by Scottish Government

The general public usually only hears from BMA Scotland when it has a negative message to communicate about Scotland’s government and our NHS. Now that may be much more to do with the editorial choices of the corporate media and the BBC Scotland. I’ll leave you to judge from your own experience.

However, it is appropriate that – once again – the TUSC fills the media vacuum on balanced reporting.

The Scottish Government working with the Scottish GP Committee of BMA Scotland has just (31 March) announced additional funding of £15 million to GP practices to help them cope with the extra pressures arising from COVID-19.

The new funding is intended to help alleviate pressures on out-of-hours services by keeping surgeries open on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and to provide further help to cover costs of equipment, additional non-clinical staff, GP partners and locum cover for sickness leave.

The chair of the BMA’s Scottish GP Committee Dr Andrew Buist states:

“… asking GPs to keep their practices open over public holidays is not a request we have taken lightly.”

And Dr Buist adds:

“Our NHS is changing, and at the forefront of that change is the primary care response. ….. There is a huge amount of work being put in from the Scottish Government and across the system and now is the time for us to pull together, for clear thinking and strong leadership.”

I’ve just been reminded of something else I heard on GMS this morning, I thought it strange they were interviewing the (UK) defence minister (might need to check that!) about supplies of testing kits. He said the chemicals were in short supply, lots of competition worldwide etc, then I see this tweet from Peston saying, actually no, plenty of chemicals, companies are just waiting on orders…

.@michaelgove said just now that the difficulty in increasing number of #COVID19 tests was due to a shortage of the relevant "chemcial reagents". Well I've just talked to the Chemical Industries Association, which represents the UK's very substantial chemicals industry. It…

I’ve just listened to Uk gov statement on coronavirus – oooo aren’t they talking tough to those naughty banks? Then we get a report on the poor young lad that died in London – they are using that story to cover for uk gov utter shambles and lies, making us feel sympathetic and sad.

Good news on looking at the Scottish data graphs that has been linked to before: go to the ‘days for deaths to double’ graph – if it’s above that red line we are flattening the curve & it has been above the red line since 28th March – brilliant. If you look at the graph after that – growth rate comparisons (on a logarithmic scale!) you can see England teetering around that ‘doubles every 3-days’ line (the red line on the graph above it) – not good and risk of run-away pandemic is real. Though you can see that Italy has recovered well. I just wish we were aiming for the South Korea curve! Instead all we hear on the radio is a comparison with Spain… I’m assuming to make the UK numbers look better? Spain doesn’t feature on this graph:

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com

'Scotland has much to be proud of in the way that the pandemic has been managed. I have no doubt that the death toll would have been greater without the unwavering support and close working relationship between the government and the clinical community.' Dr Dr Stephen Cole, President of the Scottish Intensive Care Society Contributor reminders and comments talkingupreminders@gmail.com